Date: 1761
The mind of the hearer might very well be a tabula rasa, free from every prejudice, and like soft wax, susceptible of every impression; and with all this, not yield to truth itself, proposed in the manner it is every day proposed, under the appearance of falsehood."
preview | full record— Batteaux, Charles (1713-1780)
Date: 1761
"The image of Eloisa, never to be erased from my mind, shall be my shield, and render my soul invulnerable."
preview | full record— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)
Date: 1763
"Explore the dark recesses of the mind, / In the Soul's honest volume read mankind, / And own, in wise and simple, great and small, / The same grand leading Principle in All."
preview | full record— Churchill, Charles (1731-1764)
Date: 1765
"If all [the mind] had was the mere capacity to receive those items of knowledge--a passive power to do so, as indeterminate as the power of wax to receive shapes or of a blank page to receive words--it would not be the source of necessary truths"
preview | full record— Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm (1646-1716)
Date: 1773, 1894-1895
One may learn "her Lesson from within" and "There […] read the Characters imprest / Upon the Mind of ev'ry human Breast,-- / The native Laws prescrib'd to every Soul, / And Love, the One Fulfiller of the Whole."
preview | full record— Byrom, John (1692-1763)
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"But I had found it: I did find and know an exalted mind, which raised me beyond myself, and made me all that I am capable of being. All the powers of my soul were extended, and the deep sentiment which nature engraved on my heart, was unfolded."
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)
Date: 1782
"Oh! lads, beware the month of May;--for you blest girls--nature decked out--as in a birth-day suit--courts you with all its sweets--where-e'er you tread--the grass and wanton flowerets fondly kiss your feet--and humbly bow their pretty heads--to the gentle sweepings of your under-petticoats--the...
preview | full record— Sancho, Charles Ignatius (1729-1780)